How André Drößus became a professional speaker
André Drößus completed his bachelor's degree in economics at the University of Paderborn in 2011. By chance, he was drawn to Fellowmind Germany, where he spent many years as a consultant introducing the latest technologies to other companies and their employees. André Drößus has now been taking on the challenge of the Team Lead role since 2018. However, he has never completely put his expertise in consulting and lecturing on ice.
With the laptop on the university floor
‘Funnily enough, I used to hate giving presentations,’ admits André Drößus, looking back to his time at school and university. ‘Far too much attention and you have the feeling that every word has to be right.’ When the now 36-year-old came to UPB in 2008 after completing his A-levels, he still had to ‘get into the groove’ a little: Diplom and Magister became the Bachelor's and Master's system and somehow André Drößus and his fellow students didn't really know what to do with it. And when he wasn't sitting on the floor of hidden university corridors with his laptop preparing for the next statistics exam, the former student spent his time on the construction site. After all, ‘I had to finance my studies somehow,’ he says, thinking back to this double burden. But on the other hand, the Switch also taught him an important lesson - because hard work is done everywhere. So he didn't let the panic of the statistics exams get to him and learnt the material. The result? ‘I came out with a 2.3 in the end and realised that it often looks worse than it actually is.’
Job promise in the basement of the UCI cinema world
When André Drößus left university in 2011, the job market was very crowded with ‘young, motivated people’, so he didn't initially find the right job for him. However, he promptly opted for a temporary solution and began training as a media designer, as he was also creatively active in his private life. ‘I had the problem that although I had a degree in economics, I was also a technical idiot with no professional experience,’ he admits. However, the training didn't really fulfil him, so after a few months he started applying for numerous jobs throughout Germany. Although he had already graduated some time ago, he suddenly received an enquiry from a company in Paderborn - the economist had already applied there directly after graduating from university.
If there was one thing André Drößus took away from his studies, it was the first rudiments of good interviewing skills, which he admits today had an effect rather by chance. ‘I didn't necessarily shine in the interview itself, but towards the end of the conversation I asked the managing director about his ambitions and visions for the company, which got him raving and he left the interview with a positive feeling,’ he recalls. ‘As I was about to sign with another company at the time, I was under a bit of time pressure. So I was invited to the final interview at a company event in the UCI cinema world.’ ‘And that's how I got my final job offer in the basement of UCI Kinowelt,’ he says, still smiling about the circumstances. He always had a module from his studies in the back of his mind, in which he learnt how to negotiate in English. He adapted this knowledge to the situation and reacted skilfully to certain questions: ‘I simply made the best of the situation.’ He listened actively and asked questions with interest. The knowledge from the module on negotiating in English also helped him to recognise stylistic devices in negotiations with others.
Finding the right speaking style
André Drößus has now been working at Fellowmind, for which he was hired in the basement in 2012, for eleven years. He started out as a consultant, even though he hardly knew anything about IT. ‘I didn't know what a VPN or a domain was,’ he amuses himself today about his early days. But his supervisor at the time quickly recognised a much more important skill - namely André Drößu's eloquence. At the time, Fellowmind was overseeing Miele's global transition to Microsoft technology, so André Drößus spent over two years training employees in his role as a consultant. ‘These two years had a huge impact on me’, so he developed a presentation style that suited him: entertainment with the right amount of knowledge transfer. And he has retained this style to this day - with success.
Being a boss at eye level
Having worked at the company for so long, André Drößus grew ‘further and further into the hierarchy’ and became team leader in 2018. Looking back, this transition was accompanied by numerous aha moments for him. He realised that he was able to grow into this new role, even though it initially seemed strange and inappropriate to him - just as he had avoided giving presentations in the past and then developed into a professional presenter. He himself would describe his management style as transparent. It is very important to him to be able to explain to each of his employees why something was decided and in what context. ‘If I can't explain a management decision properly, then it may simply not have been sensible.’ This is also evident in his team of eight: ‘Some time ago, my team gave me a mug with a picture of me on it and everyone in the team had the same one. We were practically the first team to have our own merchandise,’ he says, pleased with the good relationship - because André Drößus doesn't usually play the “boss card”. In fact, he sees himself more as a link between his team and the management. As a final comment on the role of team leader, the former employee muses: ‘I still have great respect for this role, but it can also be incredibly fulfilling to work with great people and to be responsible for ensuring that they have the best conditions for their day-to-day work. And happy employees,
His day-to-day work depends a lot on self-organisation, so he usually checks in the morning to see which tasks have which priority. He also conducts numerous presales calls with customers based on his experience. This is a process in which experts develop a comprehensive approach to interacting with potential buyers before making the actual contact. This approach often takes place in B2B transactions where one company offers a service and wants to encourage the other company to invest. The alumnus is happy to support his colleagues in conducting the dialogue. As a consultant, one of his core tasks is to analyse existing situations and propose suitable solutions and recommendations based on these. André Drößus not only maintains a close relationship with his team, but also with customers. ‘The charming thing here is that I've been doing this for so long that I go into customer appointments with much more anticipation than nervousness,’ admits André Drößus. He also holds coaching calls with employees who are facing a difficult customer situation, among other things. André Drößus then acts as a mediator and provides them with important experience and advice - always on an equal footing.
André Drößus' tips for your next presentation:
- Be aware of what you would like to hear. Most of the time, pure knowledge transfer is boring, so mix it up a bit with entertainment.
- Only you know what you want to say, so don't stress if a point gets lost. The story that comes across is important, not the one you have in your head.
- When planning, you will always do yourself a favour with a loose script that roughly fills the given time and contains one or two additional pieces of information if there is still time. So be flexible in your planning, then you won't be unsure if something goes differently.tet happy customers, which also happens to be a core essence of Fellowmind.’
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Andé's path into the professional world
